Review a local, transactional e-commerce website.

The local, transactional e-commerce websites that i want to review is the website of Golden Screen Cinema. Golden Screen Cinema is well-known for its quality of their mega halls and services of their staffs. There are approximately 24 outlets of GSC throughout Malaysia. Which means thousands and thousands of people would log on to the website to check out what is the latest movie and etc.
The photo above shows the outlook of GSC website. It is a websites with many fixtures, such as we can check for the show times of movies available 24/7, membership sign in section is for members to log in and we can book out tickets so that we could avoid long queue.
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The photo below shows how annoying it would be to have a long queue in front of you when you wanna buy tickets. The websites has made our job easy and we can collect our tickets before the movie starts without any queuing.

There is a cineplex which is newly opened in Tropicana City, through website, we can get the free screening coupon and enjoy the new and luxurious environment for a movie.

Souviniers. We can check out if there is any souviniers available from Walt Disney. That is absolutely cool. Such as the pendant of Mighty Bolt. Souviniers can be bought from the Glitters next to cinema entrance. Check it out.

The website also provise us the map showing us how to get to the cinema so that tourist will not get lost when want to get to the cinema.

As a conclusion, GSC website is a well known transactional website in Malaysia. The websites is very convinient for Malaysian citizens to check the showtimes and save their time with the help of the online booking system. For more information, please log on to www.gsc.com.my .

Golden Screen Cinema is a recommended place to watch movie. For my personal preference, GSC Pavilion or GSC 1 Utama.

Credit Card debts: Causes and Prevention.

IN TODAY'S WORLD

What thing can possibly be more important other than money itself ?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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Yeah, without a doubt, money is freaking important.

We NEED it to buy foods.

We NEED it to pay our rental.

We NEED it to buy fuel for our car.
and I NEED it to buy gifts for my girl-friend.

However, knowing that money is very important, many people tend to use their "future" money by applying credit cards.

In the end, most of them tend to overspend and created huge debts for themselves.

Why? What could it be possibly causes this to happen ?

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Poor Money Management

We tend to spend on unnecessary things that leads to wastage of money. Some people buy heavily expensive things without worrying they could or could not pay back in the future.

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Saving too little or not at all

Many people don't eventually have the habit of saving money nowadays. During critical periods, they couldn't meet up to the unexpected expenses which may cause them to have a financial downturn.
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Banking on a windfall

Spending tomorrow's money today is very tempting. Especially if you believe that tomorrow will come no matter what. A planned job bonus may not be a sure thing. The inheritance that you believe will come your way may not. The lesson is don't spend the money until the check clears.

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Heavy medical expenses

Gaps in coverage, lapsed policies and increasingly costly alternatives make this a popular category. Just about every doctor now takes credit cards. If you think it's for convenience, think again. The medical industry wants to get paid at the time service is rendered. They know that if they don't, the chances of their getting paid drops. This means more debt for you, less for them. To be fair, they are not in the lending business, but this only masks a bigger problem

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Reduced in income

We often let debt takes us in when there's reduced in our income by the hope that we will find another source to pay back in the future

After you know the reasons for us to overspend, now, how are we going to curb this problem?

Here are some safety measures that can be taken.

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First~

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Establish a budget and follow that budget exactly

It is advisable for you to have a budget of your on to control on your daily expenses. After creating your budget, make sure you follow them exactly

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Do not carry your credit card balance for more than 6 months

Experts indicates that beyond that 6 months point, the compounding of simple interest can produce a very expensive balance to pay off. This can be shown through the snowball effect.

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Avoid using credit card

Try avoid using credit card n your daily expenses and use cash instead. You barely see the amount that you're spending thus may cause you to spend more than what you can eventually afford.

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Self decipline

The final purchasing decision always lyes in your hands at the edge of the cash counter.

Control your self, know what you need and what you don't. Try not to buy unnessary things that could lead to overspending.

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The End

Mobile payment systems in Malaysia: Its potential and consumers adoption strategies.

Mobile money is a pin based mobile solution designed to pay without having any cash, credit cards or without any physical presence at the store that you wish to buy stuffs from. We can now use our mobile phone to pay our bills with a 6 digit pin number password via sms. This method is safe to use and could cause less danger to consumers because there is no cash needed. Read more about mobile money through http://www.neowave.com.my/mobilemoney_overview.asp.

It is important for us to know about this new mode of payment.

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There is another kind of mobile payment available in Malaysia which call SCAN mobile payment system (mps). What is SCAN mobile payment system? It enable people to send and receive money via mobile phones. There is no installation needed to start using the mps and it is a new experience of mode of payment. You can make a payment as easy as just sending an sms through phones.

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Is mps safe? It is absolutely secure with the standard of ISO/ICE 27001/2005 certification awarded by SIRIM QAS International Sdn Bhd. It is a very convinient payment system as there is no installation of any softwares required. Log on to http://www.scan-associates.net/product_mobilepay.htm to know more about the SCAN mps.

According to Bank Negara Malaysia, there is a tremendous potential for mobile telecommunication network to become a mode of payment. This is because 88% of our Malaysian citizen have subscribe for mobile phone service. Furthermore, it is more convinient compare to other mode of payment such as cash and credit cards and it would be safer if we can adopt a cash free society. The rate of crime and roberry would decline.

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http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=337023

Mobile payment systems in

E-Government in Malaysia: Its implementation so far and citizen’s adoption strategies.

"Information and communication technology to provide and improve government services, transactions and interactions with citizens, business, and other arms of governments".
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Malaysia launch it's e-government beginning in the year 1997 with the mission to lead the country into the Information Age. It seeks to improve convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with business and citizens. It is able to information flow between the citizen and the government to increase the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement. This will allows the government and citizen to work together towards development of the country. Besides that, it also enables the government to be more responsive to the needs of its citizen.
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Electronic Services

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With the E-Government website, citizen in Malaysia are now able to conduct transactions with the Government agencies such as the Tenaga National Berhad (TNB) and Telekom Malaysia Berhad. Citizens can now pay up their utility fees through internet transaction without having to waste time stuck in the traffic jam and queue in the counter. It proof alot of convenience to the citizen.

Besides that, it has also now provide services to purchase tickets for Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTMB) through online transaction. For the MIA members, they can also pay their yearly fees through online transaction in this website.

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Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)

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This site is created to ease the job seeker and employer to gather labor market information. It is supervised by the Ministry of Human Resource(MOHR). It can helps to improve mobilization of the nation's human resources and to ensure manpower in the country is fully utilize.

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E-Procurement

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This system allows the supplies to sell goods and services to government through internet. Suppliers can advertise their product, present their pricing, process orders and deliveries. This can equip the workforce with technology at the minimum cost and creates more skillful and knowledgeable force.

How to safeguard our personal and financial data ?

When your kids are sick, you tend to bring them to the clinic or hospital to get a medical treatment, and doctors will provide some medicine for the cold or fever.

Just like we human's, our computer and softwares are vulnerable to catch a "Cold" also. This may eventually threatens the organizational's online security and expose our data to unwanted parties.
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Now, here come's the problem.

How are we going to safeguard our personal and financial data ?

And,

Do you think the current measurement is sufficient to secure us from this threats ?

The following are some simple measurement that can be taken to curb the problems:

• Use and maintain anti-virus software and a firewall
• Scan your computer for spyware regulary
• Try to avoid unsed software programs
• Consider of using seperate computer accounts
• Use passwords pr encrypt sensitive files
• Follow corporate policies for handling and storing work-related information
• Make sure your software are always up to date.

With such advancement of technology, there's still no 100% guarantee of measurement to safeguard us from these kind of threats.

However, there are yet ways to minimize this threats.

It is advisable for everyone to

Bewise, Beware and Becareful.

The End.

The threat of online security: How safe is our data?

Online security is a kind of defense strategy to ensure that the data in our computer is not being grant access unless through authorization by hackers, furthermore avoid virus attacks. These method of prevention no longer can guarantee that our data is safe.

Threats of online security:

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1.Worm

Worm is a self-reproducing until it interupts the whole computer system. The examples of worms are Blaster, Sasser, Bagle and Code red which are all causing interruption to the windows systems.

2. Computer virus

Computer virus is actually a kind of computer software that can copy itself to any computer without permission of the user. The examples of computer virus is "I love you".

3. Trojan Horse

The terms trojan horse comes from a Greek Myth. Trojan Horse is a kind of Malware which allows hackers to grant access to computers without any authorization. The examples of threats which can be perform are uploading and downloading files from the computer.

4. Identity theft

Identity theft occurs when there is criminal who uses other person's identity as their own identity. It can also incluse misuse the identity of cresit card and mail fraud.

5. Denial-of-service attack

Denial-of-service attack is an attempt to to make computer resource unavailable for its user. It usually slows down network performance, unavailability of certain websites or inability to access to some websites.

Methods use to prevent threat to the online security to make sure that our data is safe.

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1. Firewall

Firewall is a system which limits network access between two or more networks. However firewall cannot prevent virus from spreading to the computer systems.

2. Virus defense

Anti virus softwares are use to detect and terminate virus before it spread to our computer system. Unfortunately, anti virus sofware cannot prevent every type of virus as we know virus nowadays are keep on transforming and there are difficulties for the software engineer to create new virus defense. Therefore, data may also be destroyed.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_online_security_threats_for_2009.php

Pros and Cons from the Students Perspective on E-learning Offered in Malaysian Universities

Electronic Learning is a term for all types of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), where technology is used to support the learning process. The medium is usually through computer technology like the internet. Students can just go online at home and download lecture notes and tutorial questions and do self learning. Some of the more advanced universities are using video conference for teaching or consultation. There is no need of interaction, everything is done through computer technology.
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E-Learning lessons are generally designed to guide students through information or to help students perform in specific tasks. Information is communicated to the students by e-learning content. Generally e-learning provides some major benefits. One of them is to reduce environmental impact. E-learning enables students to learn at home without having to travel to universities. Indirectly the usage of transportation on road will be reduced and the overall carbon output will also be reduced in the long run. E-learning also creates a paperless environment which reduce the cutting down of trees. Students can just pass up assignments and tutorials by email and it is fast and convenient.
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Education can be costly sometimes not only because of the tuition fees but also the expenses. The expenses of printing, photocopying, stationery, travel, accommodation and etc can be costly however it is usually harder to be noticed by us. By using e-learning, most of these expenses can be terminated. By reducing expenses education will be more affordable. Besides that, studying a few books or set of notes will never be enough for students to learn everything because of the rapid changing world. Education thought the internet might improve the learning of students because the information available in internet is almost unlimited and they come from all over the world.
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E-learning also provides flexibility and convenience for students because students can decide when to learn since the study is self-paced. Students are not bounded by schedules and time, they can learn anytime, anywhere without having to attend classes physically.
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Nothing is perfect in this world. E-learning has a lot of benefits, but it has some disadvantages too. For students with lower motivation, the process of learning will be slow because there is no fixed schedule and no physical supervision. Besides that, some students might get lost with course activities and deadlines because sometimes the information on the internet cannot be understood by everyone in the same meaning.
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E-learning need no physical presence, therefore students might feel being isolated from classmates and lecturers. Human beings have social needs. It is not recommended for someone to stay at home for all the time. The thinking of the person will be narrow and dare not to face new challenges in this world.
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It is mentioned that by using e-learning students can learn anytime they want. There is a problem which is help from lecturers or tutors might not be available because there is no fixed time for that. Sometimes the slow internet connection in Malaysia might also cause frustration in students. Nobody loves to sit in front of a computer to wait for programs and files to load. Complexity of computer files and database might also causes errors when managing the files.
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Last but not least, e-learning is still not practicable for everyone because of the higher costs. Some of the students still prefer to use hard copies because they can write short notes on the paper and they can carry it around. To make e-learning practicable for everyone, we will need a lot of costs and time.
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Electronic Currency

"Money was originally a physical substance like gold and silver"
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In this 20th century, even though most of the individual is still using notes and coins as money for their every day transaction, there is no doubt that electronic currency (also known as electronic cash) is currently replacing the money role in the market.
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Electronic currency is refer as money or scrip which is exchanged electronically. It is an intangible money which only exists as entries in bank records. People nowadays do not prefer to carry so much money in their pocket, instead they prefer to use a card as their money transaction to purchase item, use public transport and so on.
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One of the successful electronic currency system is the Hong Kong's Octopus card system. It actually started as a transit pay system and now it has grown into a widely use electronic cash system. Most of the citizen will use this card to pay fare for the public transport, shop for their daily use accessories at the super market and etc. Malaysia and Singapore had also implement this method in their public transportation system.
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Advantages

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With the electronic currency system, the user can feel more secure with their daily transaction since they won't need to bring so many cash with them. This can provide convenience and security the user.
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"This situation usually occur in the train station or purchasing something"
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With the electronic currency system, it can increase the effectiveness of transaction, people won't need to queue so long to make their cash payment or waited for their changes since everything is done electronically. Besides that, it also lower the transaction fees and it also can be use to deal with internet transaction.
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Disadvantages
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The issues that occurs for electronic currency is how to levy taxes from the transaction from the purchase through the cards.
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Other than that, electronic currency can also be abuse to be use as money laundering. Money laundering is the practice of disguising illegal obtained funds so that it seems legal. Since all the transaction is done through the bank accounts, it is hard to detect to track that crime.
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Besides that the wide usage of electronic currency can also leads to macroeconomics effect such as exchange rate instabilities and shortage of money supplies in the market.
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In conclusion, the electronic currency system do proof a lots of advantages to the peoples and it the system will keep improve in the future and be able to use in wider range as secured credit cards or internet transaction. However, laws and regulation should be set to prevent abuse of this system.

The Application of Pre-paid Cash Card for Consumers

Pre-paid cash card, also known as debit card is a card which provides alternative payment method to cash when making purchases. The funds are withdrawn direct from the bank account or the remaining balance of the card. It is different from credit card which do not deduct fund directly from bank account and having the bearer to pay back on a later date. However it is still not that common compared with credit card because most of the people do not have so much balances in their account while credit card allows users to make certain installments.
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Although not common, pre-paid cash card still have certain benefits like allowing users to withdraw cash instantly. It is also used widely for telephone and internet purchases. Basically there are 3 types of pre-paid cash card which are: Online Debit Card; Offline Debit Card; and Electronic Purse Card.
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Online debit cards require electronic authorization of every single transaction and the debits are reflected in the user’s account immediately. The transaction can also additionally protected by personal identification number (PIN). It is more secured compared to offline debit card.
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Offline debit cards are used at the point of sale like a credit card. It might subject to a daily limit which can be decided by the user. Transactions concluded with offline debit card might need 2 to 3 days to reflect in the user's accounting balances. One thing that offline debit cards are better than online debit cards is that there is no cost for the purchaser to bear. Unlike online debit cards, certain rates will be charged.
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Electronic Purse Card is a smart-card-based electronic purse system which the value is stored in a card chip. The machines accepting the cards need not to have network connectivity. The amount spent is deducted instantly from the remaining balance of the card chip.
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These are 2 examples of pre-paid cash card.
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Let us take a look at the benefits of pre-paid cash cards instead of credit cards. First, users can have better control of spending because it is pre-paid so we can only spend based on the budget we have got. Unlike credit cards, some people who cannot manage their spending properly might spend over-limit and they will be suffering when paying back because of the interest. Pre-paid cash cards are also better in the sense that they provide users the information about the account balances. Therefore when the balances are low, we will stop spending and there will never be problem such as over-limit.
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Although there are also limitations but pre-paid cash cards are good in managing our spending better than credit cards. Financial problems will be reduced since the card is considered debt-free. Anyway, the convenience and benefits of the cards are still based on the users themselves.
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Phishing: Examples and its prevention methods

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Have you ever received any E-mails or SMS with the subject "to restore subject to your back account" and it seek your personal information and passwords?

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The E-mail or Sms you received might be a scam or usually known as phishing in the field of computer security. Phishing is defined as the process of criminally fraudulent to acquire a person personal information such as user name, password or credit card information. It is usually carried out in the E-mails or Sms to direct the users to key in their personal informations into the fake websites. The websites created is almost identical and it is usually difficult to be identified whether it is real or fake by normal citizens.

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"Phishing is origined from combination of fishing and phreaking"

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Examples of phishing.

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(i) Link Manipulation

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One of the example of phishing is the link manipulation. The phisher will use some well known organization website to trick its prey. Most common method of link manipulation is the mispelled URL's method. For example, an original maybank website should be www.maybank2u.com.my, the phisher might created another link www.maybank4u.com.my. Most of the first time user, will not able to identify whether the website is real or fake.

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Note: The URL is not linking to Myspace.com

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(ii) Social engineering

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Some phisher might also use the bank name and logo to send an -e-mail to the user requesting for their personal information but it actually links to phisher website. The customer of the bank might think that the links is actually send by the bank they will filled up their private information as requested by the phisher.

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(iii) Phone Phishing

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The phisher might also uses Sms that claim to be from a bank and request the receiver to dial a phone number regarding it's bank account. The phisher might also use fake caller ID so that the prey believe that it actually came from trust organization.

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Prevention Methods.

(i) Social Responses

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The government should educate and inform the public regarding phishing cases and methods. This can prevent the same case from repeating. For example, when you go to the bank, you can usually see the notes that states "The bank would not request private information from the user".

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Besides that, citizen should also change their browsing habits. Instead of using the hyperlink methods, the user should find out the genuine website on their own to prevent phishing links.

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(ii) Eliminating Phishing Mails

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There are now some spam filters available to be download in the internet. This method can helps to identify the phishing mails and automatically delete it once detected.

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(iii) Monitoring and Takedown

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Individuals who found out the phishing websites can report to industry groups such as PhishTank to eliminate the fake existing website.

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(iv) Browsers Alerting to Fraudulent Websites

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Web browsers nowadays such as Internet Explorer, Mozzila Firefox, Safari and Opera has provided the user with the fraudulent websites alert. When the browser detect a phishing link or websites, it will alert the user. Therefore, when you open any new websites, be sure to check whether there is any alert given by the web browser.

The Application of 3rd Party Certification Programme in Malaysia

Online boutique, eBay, Amazon, a few things that we are familiar with have become very common among individuals in Malaysia. We can purchase imported clothes, cool gadgets, limited collection items or maybe a bottle of Martell Cordon Bleu at your fingertips. Some, or maybe most of the items sold through internet are available in many different rates so there are always alternatives for us to purchase items at a lower price.

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Although e-commerce has brought a lot of benefits, there are also some circumstances we have to face. The main thing I'm going to mention here today is about the security. One of the most important thing in online business is about the security, which covers a lot of areas such as information of users, account numbers, passwords and etc. Without a good security system an online business can be vulnerable to other parties. The information can be stolen by others for other uses or maybe illegal activities.
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So now I'm going to talk about the third party authority, which is also called as certification authority. It is an entity that issues digital certificates which contains public key and identity for use by other parties. The private key disallows information which is kept to be available publicly, and it is only available for the end user who generated the key pair. The certificate also acts as a identity for the end user and the relying parties can trust the information in the certification authority. MSC Trustgate.com Sdn Bhd is an example of certification authority in Malaysia, which was founded in 1999 to overcome the weak security open network communications and become the catalyst for the growth of e-commerce.
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The vision of Trustgate is to enable organizations to conduct their business securely over the Internet, as much as what they have been enjoying in the physical world. The increasing rate of fraud over the internet has increased the need of third party certification. There are several products and services provided by Trustgate which are: SSL Certificate; Managed PKI; Personal ID; MyTRUST, MyKAD ID; SSL VPN; Managed Security Services; VeriSign Certified Training; and Application Development.
.This is one of the service from Trustgate, MyKad PKI. This solution allows us to authenticate ourselves online to digitally signs documents and make transactions which are accepted by the government. Thought the third party certification, signing and transaction can be made with more security.
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Besides that, the company has also provided training which is especially important in the fast changing Internet security and e-commerce environments. VeriSign Certified Training is one of the training courses offered.
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For more information regarding the products and services, you can visit this link: http://www.msctrustgate.com/
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Last but not least, althought online business and transaction are great but we must always becareful because there is always a risk of security failure. Third party certification program shall not be ignored while it shall be treated as a necessary in e-commerce world.
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An example of an E-commerce success and its causes

The application of e-commerce in Air Asia Airlines had rock the world of airlines booking system. Air Asia had been awarded as the No.1 Low cost airline. Citizens of Malaysia would think of AirAsia when they intended to travel domestically. Dr. Tony Fernandez had successfully lowered the burden of the Sarawakians and Sabahans who wish to travel to west Malaysia or even to overseas, which years back we only have our own local Airlines, MAS Airlines, which is much more expensive compare to Air Asia.

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The cause of success of Air Asia:

1. Low price in air fares

Air Asia is famous for its cheap fares which will reach at as low as Rm 0.99 per trip, the cheap price is not only for the domestic flights, it is available for international flights too. However, those cheap seats are for early birds and first come first serve basis. These super deals had attract more and more customers to log on to Air Asia websites and book air tickets.

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2. Good online system.

Airasia is running a Business-to-Customers (B2C) transactions. We can save our time by just click on internet to book our tickets. It is amazing which the process of purchasing air tickets are just one click away. We can even book ticket as far as 9 months away from the booking date.

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3.On schedule and less delayed flight.

Based on our local newspaper, the New Straits Time, Air Asia's flight is 88% on schedule and only 12% of the flight had been delayed. Compared to MAS Airlines which is only 87% on schedule and 13% of the flights had been delayed.

4. No hidden charge and no administration fees.

The fees stated in the website of Air Asia is all the customers have to pay. There is no hidden charge behind those amounts shown. Furthermore, Air Asia had exclude the administration fees and fuel surcharge from all the air fares making it even cheaper and affordable for customers.

As a conclusion, Air Asia had been a very successful low cost Airline Company with all the marketing strategies applied. Now i agree with the logo "Now Everyone Can Fly" which is being use by Air Asia since the establishment of the airline. Lastly, the service had keep on improving from time to time.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airasia

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http://www.jeffooi.com/AirAsia_On_Time_060825_NST4.jpg